Tinsel In A Tangle

lamps wouldn’t squeeze too tightly. Ana was still looking at the contents in the box, though he could tell that her attention was no longer fully on the task at hand.

He opened her robe and slipped it down her arms to pool on the floor between them. He reached around her again, one arm under her right arm, the other over her left arm. There was no way she could ignore his presence, even though he wanted her to keep doing what she was doing.

“This is a lot,” she said.

And he couldn’t wait to break them all in with her.

She gasped when he placed one clamp on her breasts, loosening it slightly once it was over the distended nub. They’d work up to tighter; he only wanted it tight enough to stay in place at the moment. He attached the other one.

Ana whimpered.

“What toy do you want to try first?”

“I don’t. I want you,” she moaned, her head falling back against his shoulder.

“You already have me,” he said. “Always.”

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say, however, because the sound she made wasn’t a happy one. Then she stepped out of his arms and bent down and picked up her robe, putting it back on, tying it. Jake was a bastard for being turned on when she obviously had concerns about something, but the way the silk robe outlined her clamped nipples was almost too much for him to handle.

She tried to cross her arms over her chest, but bumped into the clamps. She frowned down at her breasts and walked over to the open door leading to the second-floor balcony. Sunlight sparkled on the water in the distance, over the palm trees. Off to the right, she’d just be able to make out the roof of her small bungalow.

“What’s going on, Jake? Are you leaving?”

“What? Fuck no! Why would you think that?” He followed her out the door onto the balcony.

“What’s all this for? If that isn’t a box for someone who’s going to be needing some time to herself, I don’t know what is.”

At the same time he felt guilty, he laughed. “Princess, those toys are not for you, they’re for us. If you would’ve looked a bit deeper you would’ve seen some handcuffs and silk ties. Do you think I expected you to use those on yourself?”

“What? You’re not leaving?”

He leaned against the railing and looked at her. She really thought he’d leave her? He thought he made it clear to her every single day how much he needed her, how he was nothing without her, how much he adored her. “I’m a wanted criminal. Where would I go?”

“No! Are you?”

He shrugged, wanting to assure her but not wanting to lie. The “wanted” part was debatable, but the criminal part was definitely true.

She would argue that he wasn’t the one who stole the money from Staffordshire International until she was blue in the face, but any authorities who came after him wouldn’t care. The right thing to do would’ve been to return all the money to the company. He felt absolutely no guilt for not doing that. How could he when he was in paradise with his woman and they had their whole lives in front of them. She didn’t know yet about the money he got from the necklace. Nor about the diamond.

“I—” But he didn’t let her get any words out. He put a finger over her mouth to silence her.

“I’ll be right back.” He ran back into the bedroom and dug through his sock drawer for the small blue box that was starting to feel like a weight he was carrying around his neck. He told himself he’d been waiting for the right time, wondering if he’d know the right time.

He did.

Feeling like the weight had been lifted, he tossed the ring box in the air and caught it. He grabbed a toy from the bed and headed back to his woman. The woman who would be his forever. There was a new lightness in his step when he headed back outside.

Ana wasn’t where he’d left her.

“Princess?”

She’d walked down to the far corner of the balcony.

“You don’t just get to walk away in the middle of a conversation, Jake! Sucks, doesn’t it? When you’re talking and then—poof—all of a sudden the person you’re talking to disappears.”

He bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. He understood the point she was trying to make, but she seriously wasn’t trying to run away from him, was she? She had to know she’d get punished for that.

He saw her gaze dart to the side, no doubt wondering if she should disappear on him again.